As reported by The New York Times, Wall Street has called the end of an era and the beginning of the next one: The most important technology product no longer sits on your desk but rather fits in your hand.
The moment came Wednesday when Apple, creator of iPods, iPhones and iPads, shot past Microsoft, the computer software giant, to become the world’s most valuable technology company.
This changing of the guard caps one of the most stunning turnarounds in business history for Apple, which had been given up for dead only a decade earlier, and its co-founder and visionary chief executive, Steven P. Jobs. The rapidly rising value attached to Apple by investors also heralds an important cultural shift: Consumer tastes have overtaken the needs of business as the leading force shaping technology.
Microsoft, with its Windows and Office software franchises, has dominated the relationship most people had with their computers for almost two decades, and that was reflected in its stock market capitalization. But the click-clack of the keyboard has ceded ground to the swipe of a finger across a smartphone’s touch screen.
And Apple is in the right place at the right time. Although it still sells computers, twice as much revenue is coming from hand-held devices and music. Over all, the technology industry sold about 172 million smartphones last year, compared with 306 million PCs, but smartphone sales grew at a pace five times faster.
Microsoft depends more on maintaining the status quo, while Apple is in a constant battle to one-up itself and create something new, said Peter A. Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal and an early investor in Facebook. "Apple is a bet on technology," he said. "And Apple beating Microsoft is a very significant thing."
As of Wednesday, Wall Street valued Apple at $222.12 billion and Microsoft at $219.18 billion. The only American company valued higher is Exxon Mobil, with a market capitalization of $278.64 billion.
The companies have comparable revenue, with Microsoft at $58.4 billion and Apple at $42.9 billion. But in their most recent fiscal years, Apple had net income of $5.7 billion, while Microsoft earned $14.6 billion.
Microsoft has more cash and short-term investments, $39.7 billion, to Apple’s $23.1 billion, which makes the value assigned by the market to Apple, essentially a bet on its future prospects, all the more remarkable.
In a trend kick-started by the Apple iPad, more than 46 million media tablets are expected to ship in 2014. This is according to the new "Worldwide and U.S. Media Tablet 2010-2014 Forecast" released by IDC on Thursday.
Up substantially from the 7.6 million tablets likely to ship this year, that forecast points to a compound annual growth rate of 57.4 percent. Of course, that includes not just the iPad but other tablets following its lead and competing in the marketplace, including the new Archos 7 Home Tablet, a tablet from the likes of Intel, and a potential tablet from the team of Google and Verizon.
IDC's definition of a media tablet is one that sports a 7-inch to 12-inch display, is powered by an ARM processor, and runs a lighter operating system such as Apple's iPhone OS or Google's Android. Such tablets don't offer built-in hardware keyboards but instead ask you to use a stylus or your finger to navigate. That description sets them apart from tablet PCs, such as the Archos 9, which are powered by x86 processors and run full PC operating systems.
Demand for media tablets will be hugely fueled by the amount and variety of third-party apps that give users the content and services they crave, noted IDC.
"The availability of apps unique to media tablets and that differentiate the experience of using one compared with a PC or smartphone will be crucial for driving consumer demand," IDC program director Susan Kevorkian said in a statement. "As the category matures and more media tablet-optimized apps become available, IDC expects that media tablets will evolve beyond nice-to-have devices and become necessities for many consumers."
Beyond just tablets, touch screen devices in general are proving a hit with consumers, according to DisplaySearch's "2010 Touch Panel Market Analysis," released Wednesday.
Total shipments of touch screens hit 606 million last year, a 29 percent boost from 2008. Demand for mobile phones, MP3 players, and GPS units have driven much of that recent growth. Phones proved the biggest factor, with 376 million touch screens shipped for cell phones in 2009. But consumer appetite for all-in-one PCs, Netbooks, and tablets will also spur further gains, according to DisplaySearch.
According to PCWorld, here are six of the most essential iPad apps to have in your arsenal. And for those on a tight budget or without any extra money at all, the following programs won't cost you a dime to download.
ABC Player
Much like the Netflix app, the free ABC Player app for iPad truly feels like the future. ABC Digital’s app lets you watch recent episodes from two dozen ABC primetime and daytime shows on your iPad, without paying a cent or breaking the law. It’s excellent. [Download via Macworld]
Epicurious Recipes & Shopping List
This app from award-winning food site Epicurious.com features over 28,000 delicious, professionally tested recipes from world renowned magazines, popular cookbooks, top chefs, and leading restaurants. The app works on both the iPhone and iPad, giving you an experience optimized for whichever device you're currently using. This next-generation kitchen companion enables food lovers to search for great recipes, create interactive shopping lists, and follow step-by-step, stove-side instructions. [Download via Macworld]
IMDB Movies & TV
IMDb is the world's largest collection of movie, TV and celebrity information. IMDb is also currently the leading app in the Apple gadget family to find US showtimes, watch trailers, browse photo galleries, get US TV listings, find the latest DVD releases, explore popular charts, and share movie info. Their ultimate goal is to list every detail about every movie and TV show ever made. [Download via Macworld]
Kayak Flights
The cost of air-transportation has gone sky-high and everyone but the most well-heeled seeks ways to save a buck when flying. Kayak.com provides one avenue for doing just that with its free iPad app. Kayak Flights is simple to use. Just tap the From and To fields to enter your departure and destination points, choose the dates you’ll depart and return, set a few On/Off options (One-way, Include Nearby Airpots, Prefer Nonstop), set the number of passengers and flight class (Economy, Business, or First), and tap Search. In short order, Kayak Flights produces a list of available flights. [Download via Macworld]
Kindle
Amazon.com has converted its free Kindle app for iPhone into a universal app with the launch of the iPad. Kindle for iPad excels because of its visual customization ability, and its overall simplicity. You can tweak the screen to your liking, and then simply read. While the free Kindle handles only books you purchase from Amazon, it also lets you jot onscreen notes while reading and lets you choose between standard, sepia, and nighttime (grey text on black) page displays. And, of course, Amazon offers far, far more books right now than Apple's iBookStore. [Download via Macworld]
Netflix
If you've got a Netflix unlimited membership and haven't downloaded the free Netflix app for the iPad, head on over to the App Store this instant. With Netflix installed on your iPad, you get access to the thousands of movies and TV shows available from the video rental service's 'Watch Instantly' service. The Netflix iPad app lets you manage your account, report problems, and update your DVD and Instant queues. It supports streaming over both Wi-Fi and 3G connections, and the video quality is pretty impressive over the former. (It's less impressive over 3G due to bandwidth issues.) Whether at home or on the road, Netflix ensures that entertainment is never more than a tap or two away. [Download via Macworld]
As you are probably aware by now, Apple's newest gadget, the iPad, has garnered some well deserved attention from technology lovers worldwide. I have provided the following guide below [via cnet.com] for you in hopes of giving you some additional insight on the excellence of this device. Here are just a few reasons you should consider investing in the iPad:
1. Everything old is new again
The iPad can be pushed much further than any non-laptop mobile device, including the iPhone. Because of the iPad's extra screen size, default apps such as the Safari Web browser, e-mail, iPod, video, maps, photos, and YouTube all look and behave much more like full-blown applications. The photos app could easily be mistaken for Apple's iPhoto, with its opening view of photos arranged in event-specific stacks. The iPod app looks and behaves like an abbreviated version of iTunes, for better or worse. And the YouTube app plays out like a prettier version of the actual Web site. Paradoxically, the two apps that have changed the least, Maps and the Safari browser, give the most radically different experience thanks to the iPad's big screen.
2. Size is meaningless without grace
Luckily, the iPad has both qualities in equal measure, helped by a new 1GHz Apple A4 processor, capacitive multi-touch display technology, and an integrated Wi-Fi antenna compatible with the latest 802.1n wireless spec. Apps launch within seconds; waking from sleep mode is nearly instantaneous; and even a cold boot-up takes just 18 seconds. Even if your local Wi-Fi network isn't up to 802.11n speeds, the Web-browsing experience often feels faster than on an iPhone or iPod Touch on the same network, simply because you're doing a lot less scrolling and zooming to get to the information you need.
3. The Apple iPad as an e-book reader
The presentation of books on the iPad is gorgeous. Cover graphics and illustrations display in rich color, book pages have a deliberately paper-like tone, and turning pages by tapping or flipping is intuitive. Page turns also render much faster than with e-ink technology, allowing you to quickly flip through pages. Unique features, such as in-book music and video playback (when supported), and one-touch dictionary definitions further distinguish the iPad from its e-reader competitors.
4. Gaming on the iPad
Just like the iPhone and iPod Touch, third-party apps for the iPad are a big deal. Generally speaking, apps made by these developers branch off in every conceivable direction, from cooking recipe journals to Twitter clients. But if there's one type of app that rules over all the rest in both quantity and popularity, it's games. All of the thousands games available for the iPhone and iPod Touch can be played on the iPad, scaled up to fit the screen or played at their native resolution. The more than 21,000 games account for more titles than the Sony PSP and Nintendo DS, combined. And those are the games that predate the iPad. In every instance, the iPad-optimized games look and feel radically different from the experience of playing on an iPhone, or even a PSP.
5. MobileMe
Apple's MobileMe service gives iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch owners a way to keep e-mail, contacts, and calendars in sync with their computers without ever having to dock the device. The service runs $99 per year (after a 60-day free trial) and also provides a Web-based photo gallery for your digital photo collection, an iDisk service for storing files remotely, a utility for locating the device if it becomes lost, and a security feature that can remotely erase the device in case of theft.
6. Accessibility features
At first glance, a touch-screen tablet may seem like a poor choice for anyone dealing with a physical impairment, but Apple's pioneering work with improving the accessibility of the iPhone and iPod brings some noteworthy enhancements to the iPad. Visually impaired users may find using Apple's VoiceOver feature a functional method for navigating menus and typing messages and e-mails. As you drag your finger around the display and tap a button, the iPad will read a description of that button. The iPad will also read the text of dialog boxes, the time of day, the status and orientation of the display (locked or unlocked, portrait or landscape), and detail information, such as the battery level and Wi-Fi signals. What's more, it speaks each character as you type a message, and it will suggest auto correction choices. Voice Over can read text messages, e-mails, and even Web pages.
7. Performance
For a product that's between $500 and $900, the iPad smokes. The custom Apple 1GHz A4 processor wields some power, which is most evident in apps that don't depend on the Web, such as photos, iBooks, or games. Hand in hand with the processor speed is the responsiveness of the multi-touch screen, which also manages to dazzle the eye with its sharp 1024x768-pixel resolution backlit by even-toned LEDs. Screen angles are unbelievably good, thanks to the same IPS (in-plane-switching) screen technology Apple uses in its desktop displays. Audio quality is indistinguishable from our trusty iPod Touch, offering a smooth and balanced sound, provided you pair it with quality headphones.
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